How 'Tron: Ares' post-credits scene sets up a sequel

With his mother dead and law enforcement on the way to Dillinger Systems, Evan Peters’ disgraced tech CEO Julian decided to escape accountability. Rather than answer for his crimes, he fled into his company’s digital world. He used his digitizing lasers to transport himself to the grid he created for his company. In Tron: Ares only end credits scene, we saw his arrival into his red-hued virtual realm.

The digital world was in ruins, as ENCOM’s executives had managed to hack into the system, destroying Julian’s system. That had also led to all his programs derezzing. That included Athena and the digital soldiers who’d been hunting Eve Kim and Ares in the real world. Only, it turned out something in the computer world still worked somehow. While Julian looked over the desolate land where he now lived alone, a stand emerged from the floor of Ares’ old HQ. Inside was an old model Identity Disc rather than the triangular ones used by Julian’s programs.

At first, the CEO was hesitant to pick it up but, as it glowed red, he found himself drawn to it. When he finally grabbed the disc it overpowered him. It also transformed him. His human clothes gave way to an outfit Tron fans first saw in 1982. He took on the form of Sark, the program his grandfather Ed Dillinger had created decades earlier.

Sark looked like his creator, Ed. The program was also a lot like Julian, who was willing to kill Eve to get what he wanted. Sark was a ruthless, sadistic digital entity who served the Master Control Program as the MCP’s commander of the game’s waged on the Games Grid.

Unlike Julian, who barely flinched when presented with Eve’s certain death, Sark did initially push back against hurting a User when Kevin Flynn entered the grid. But the Master Control tortured him until Sark agreed. He then tried to hunt down both Flynn and the safety program Tron.

Tron defeated Sark in what appeared to be their final showdown. But Master Control then saved Sark by giving the program all of his powers and abilities. Sark regenerated as a powerful giant that ultimately derezzed again when Tron threw his disc into the distracted MCP’s communication beam.

Sark, in any form, was never seen or heard from again until the end credits of Tron: Ares when Ed Dillinger’s human grandson seemingly became the old program. It also seemingly set up a fourth Tron movie that needs to answer some very big questions. These are the biggest:

• How did anything still work inside the destroyed Dillinger grid? Did Julian have a secret backup no one at ENCOM knew about?
• Who or what put a copy of Sark into Julian’s system?
• Was Julian’s system built from the framework of the original MCP?
• Did Julian give Ares the title of Master Control as a simple homage? Or was Ares built from remnants of the powerful system his grandfather used?
• How, if at all, was Julian’s grid connected to the one where Sark oversaw the Games?
• Did Ed Dillinger hide a copy of Sark in the grid? Did he possibly put a copy of himself in that virtual world the way Kevin Flynn did with his own system?
• Did the surviving remnants of the MCP power up when it recognized the presence of its User’s grandson?
• Did Sark become Master Control when the MCP gave the program all its powers? If Sark did, does that mean Julian is now Master Control?
• Did Tron: Ares foreshadow Julian becoming Master Control with his red, creepy User visage when speaking to Ares?
• Just how powerful can a User with the abilities of Sark (and maybe also Master Control) become?
• How will Julian use these abilities to rebuild his grid?
• How can Julian use his new power to escape? To get revenge against his enemies? To clear his name?

In the original Tron ENCOM founder Dr. Walter Gibbs, the man who created the chess program Ed Dillinger turned into Master Control, explained the connection that exists between Users and their digital creations. He told Ed Dillinger the “spirit” of the people who wrote them “remains in every program” they designed.

Ed Dillinger created Sark. He also transformed Master Control into an out-of-control monster, a term that applies to his grandson. Whether Ed made a digital copy of himself, Sark, or MCP remains to be seen. But it’s possible he didn’t need to. The spirit of all of them might still exists out there somewhere in the ever-connected virtual grid. And if those spirits are in there, they have found a willing, desperate, angry host willing to do anything to restore his family’s name.